I have always been very open about this. I love to make money and the best way to make money in the markets is in options. Limited risk with unlimited gain. Where else could you turn 2K into 250K in a year like I did? Only in options, but options are not for the timid. They can also take your hard earned money quickly if you don't do your homework. For many investors, I think it's easier to let someone else do the research. One of my new favorite places to get my options information is OptionPundit.

OptionPundit is a combination of many things. It's a blog with articles on what's moving and hot. It's also a market commentary. What I also like about the site is that he actually has opinions of where things are headed. Some sites just throw out analysis of what happened but are afraid they might be wrong and never put their balls on the line and make a call. I want other's opinions to 1. Give me a few stocks to look at 2. Make me feel better about a trade I already have on. 3. Find a site I really like and allocate some funds to some of their recommended trades.

OptionPundit is one of those sites. They have a newsletter they sell for $28 a month (going up to $48 a month on July 1st) that gives their options picks. Some feel they shouldn't have to pay for anything. My answer to that is simple. It takes a lot of time and effort to do the research to make a good options trade. A $1 a day is a bargain for that kind of information. Going into June the trades for June profit were already up 25%. Now I don't expect to lose money but every once in a while it does happen. OP is so confident in their trades that if the trades for the month aren't profitable you won't have to pay for the month. You would have made 20% in each of the past two months. As he builds his track record I assume the price is going to go up.

In summary, if you don't feel comfortable with options, want a few more stocks to watch, or just want so help, go to OptionPundit. You are certainly going to learn something but you might make a bunch of money as well. and we all love bunches of money. Mention WallstreetFighter when you sign up and the price doubles so don't mention me.

ShortDaBull paid me through Review Me to review their site and fortunately for them I am already a user so I am very familiar with the site. ShortDaBull is a "digg like" site based on the idea that users submit investment related stories and they are voted on. This should result in the "most popular" stories raising to the top. The site is still in beta and is a new site so right now it lacks the quantity of users to make it work perfectly. The other problem is there are a million digg clones out there but fortunately there are not very many stock based sites. I would imagine that this is the reason I've been paid to give my opinions of the site. They simply need more users. The positive is this is a chance for investors to build their own community.

If you write informative articles I would think this is a great chance to get it out to others who may not come to your site. I am not going to lie, I use these sites for two reasons. One, to gather info I wouldn't have found otherwise or in one location. Two, to promote my site. I think this is a "ground floor" opportunity for stock bloggers to do both. Contrary to Howard's thoughts, I think this can work. It will take a while to build a community and it will be as good as the community that uses it. It couldn't be any simpler to use and there is always good info, just not enough users yet. They are certainly working hard to make it better every day. They are trying to add RSS feeds to automatically feed in stories for users to vote on. They are also slowly raising the votes needed to make it to the front page. Right now 3 gets you there.

In summary, I am definitely a user of ShortDabull.com. Would I be an investor in the site? Most likely not. They have a tough road ahead but they are certainly working very hard to make this a successful site. I think it would be worth your time to stop by the site, not because they paid me, but because I truly think they are trying hard to create a site of worth that others can benefit from.

Some of you may have noticed from the banner to the left I joined ReviewMe the other day to add some income to the blog. I have a PR5 blog and I'm very opinionated so I figured I'd put them together for a little pocket cash. It's off to a perfect start because after only a few days I was offered a chance to review a site I already enjoy, The Bull Trader. There are several type of stock market blogs. The "pickem" blogs, the "analyze em" blogs, and the "talk about 'em" blogs. I go to The Bull Trader for the analyzation part of my daily reading but they also offer the pickem and and talk about em parts as well. They do a fantastic job explaining chart setups and stock movement. Look at this chart of JASO

This is the typical analysis you're going to get with each chart. What I really like about the Bull Trader the stock market charts is they actually give opinions of the stock and where it's headed vs. many of the other analyzer blogs that just say "based on the chart" it will do this or that. If I wanted a computerized analysis I would just buy an stock analysis program.

I also read TBT for their stock picks. I am smart enough to do my own research but it's nice to hear stocks other people like to give me some good leads. Speaking of leads, about once a week they put up some "momentum" plays they've chosen through their own computer analysis. If I were to give one criticism it would be I would like to see more posts. If you enjoy a blog, you want to go back each day for info. When you back that day and there's nothing new it gets disappointing. Fill in those gap days and you have a site that should be part of you're daily reads. Thanks again to The Bull Trader for the chance to review and thanks in advance to all my readers for giving them a visit.

If you would like a review of your site from WallstreetFighter (a PR5) please just hit the ReviewMe button to the left.